break
by black.k.kat
Summary: Ianto's throat burns with each scream. His arms and shoulders twinge and throb, and his eyes are blurred. He's not crying, doesn't want to: it's rage, at Jack and Owen and Gwen and Tosh, fury at himself for thinking that what he had had with Jack could ever be more than a matter of convenience.


**Rating:** PG-13

**Word count:** ~ 1,900

**Warnings: **(Wanton destruction of pretty things and a bit of a mental breakdown; writing under the influence of insomnia.) None.

**Summary:** Ianto's throat burns with each new scream. His arms and shoulders twinge and throb, and his eyes are blurred. He's not crying, doesn't want to: it's rage, at Jack and Owen and Gwen and Tosh, fury at himself for thinking that what he had had with Jack could ever be more than a matter of convenience.

**Disclaimer: **All recognizable characters are the property of their respective owners. I am in no way associated with the creators, and no copyright infringement is intended.

**A/N: **This is for the lovely, lovely **Cerabrax**, who leaves sweet reviews all the time and gave me this prompt. It immediately sparked ideas, and an hour or so later… :) Insomnia does have its uses.

* * *

_**break**_

The woman at the register barely even looks at Ianto when he reaches her.

He wonders why no one else in this place, no one else _anywhere_, can see what he's feeling.

Wonders, bleakly and emptily, when he became so good at masks.

As she rings up his six sets of dinnerware without looking up, Ianto rocks back on his heels and contemplates what he's about to do.

It's something he's never done before.

It feels _good_.

* * *

The Hub isn't empty when he returns—it never is, now. Tosh is sitting hunched at her computer, looking small and diminished and scared. He's already had to fend off UNIT wanting to come in and run things, and she unfortunately heard the conversation and took it to heart.

Ianto can't bring himself to comfort her, not now. Not like this.

Tosh is a teammate, a friend in all senses of the word. She was the one to bring him a cup of coffee after he returned from suspension, even though he'd spent all day hiding up in the Tourist Office. A cool head in Brynblaidd, an understanding face after the incident with Mary showed so very many similarities to Lisa, another unsettled mind with Suzie—Tosh isn't always steady, but she's always _there_, always someone Ianto can turn to for at least a bit of reality.

But right now, she's just another symptom of the problem that's eating away at Torchwood Three.

Ianto steps around her work station and heads for the lower levels.

Owen isn't here, at least. The doctor had tried to come in once, drunk off his knob and unable to so much as walk in a straight line. Ianto had taken one look at him and dumped a sleeping pill in his coffee, then bundled him home. Ianto's seen him a few times since then, though he hasn't been back to Torchwood—out at bars, stumbling through the streets with a woman attached to his tonsils, passed out on his own doorstep once when Ianto went to make sure he wasn't dead.

Owen doesn't deal with things. He shuts them away, drinks them down, and pretends like the world is ending and he's the only one who can see it. It drives Ianto 'round the bend, makes him a little furious, because Owen _should_ feel guilty. He was the one to shoot Jack, to open the Rift and pull Jack and Tosh back from the past—and, while Ianto approves of the idea, while he feels guilty for his own part, he knows that Owen isn't guilty for the right things. He had opened the Rift the first time looking for Diane, the second time because Manger played with their heads. What Owen is punishing himself for isn't betraying Jack, the man who gave them all second chances, and third chances, and fourth. He's angry with himself for allowing a woman to get so far under his skin.

Ianto wants to shoot him again for that.

And Gwen…

Gwen's at home with Rhys, as she should be, but it doesn't make Ianto feel any better about her or the way she's elected herself their leader. She knows nothing about Torchwood, almost nothing about aliens, _absolutely_ nothing about all of the bureaucracy and careful tap-dancing around details to politicians and expense reports that go into leading an organization such as Torchwood. Which means, of course, that Ianto finds himself suddenly with reams of paperwork and hours of telephone calls and a woman who thinks that being leader simply means sweeping out on missions and tossing around orders that even a child could understand are simple common sense.

The handles of the bags cut into Ianto's palms and fingers as he shakes off those thoughts and heads down into the echoing, dripping darkness of the Hub's lowest levels, towards a room the he's always tried to avoid in the past. The door is heavy steel, reinforced, which is the reason Ianto had chosen it for his purposes a lifetime ago. He'd had little idea, even after the Battle of Canary Wharf, of the true power of the Cybermen; he had thought a locked door would be enough to stop Lisa if something went wrong.

It hadn't.

The door swings shut behind him with a heavy, muted thud, and Ianto takes a breath as he turns on the light. The room is bare now, stripped and scrubbed and empty of anything that could invoke memories. Ianto's never particularly needed the physical prompts, though. His memory's too good to be undermined by a lack of physical triggers.

He sets the dinnerware down carefully, opens and unpacks the boxes and stacks everything neatly, grouped by type. It's all nice, fairly sturdy stuff, and he chose the prettiest patterns. Nothing overly fine, of course, because Ianto has never been one to splurge on anything but his clothes, but it's good enough.

Ianto picks up a plate from the closest stack, hefts it in his hand for a brief moment, and then turns and hurls it at the wall with all his might.

It shatters, loud in the small room, and Ianto closes his eyes. The muscles in his arm, chest, and back are trembling with the release that the action gives, and his ears are ringing from the impact. The shattered shards of china are scattered across the floor, white with silver trim, and glint like bone shards under the fluorescent lights.

It's perfect.

A wineglass is next, meeting its death against the wall on Ianto's left with a shrill glass-scream that's even more satisfying than the plate, and a spray of shards that nearly reaches Ianto's feet. He grabs a teacup, hurls it, and there's an ache building in his muscles that he _relishes_, because it's possibly the first time he's really felt alive since he watched the CCTV footage of Jack bolting after the TARDIS without so much as a single glance back.

That thought _hurts_, and Ianto throws another plate. This time, it rips a scream of rage and pain and aching frustration from his throat as he lets the dish fly, and that's just as satisfying as throwing things.

A bowl, another plate, a delicate drinking glass cut like crystal—they all hit the bare concrete and shatter, break apart and scatter on the ground the same way Ianto wishes he could break and scatter the ache of _whywhywhy_ that eats at him from the inside.

Why kiss him?

Why smile at him so sweetly, beautifully, perfectly?

Why _leave_?

Ianto's throat burns with each new scream. His arms and shoulders twinge and throb with overstretching. All of his fingers are clumsy, and his eyes are blurred. He's not crying, doesn't want to: it's rage, at Jack and Owen and Gwen and Tosh, fury at himself for thinking that what he had had with Jack could ever be more than a matter of convenience.

Wrath at himself for being so in love with Captain Jack bloody fucking Harkness that he can't even _breathe_ with the damned man gone.

Ianto's hand gropes for another dish, and when it comes up with nothing, he sinks to the ground amidst countless shards of glass and china, covers his face with his hands, and laughs.

* * *

Life continues, because they're Torchwood.

Ianto survives, because he's always been disgustingly good at that.

* * *

Jack comes back, just as bold and beautiful and cocksure as ever, and Ianto feels the iron bands around his chest relax.

_I came back for _you, Jack says, and then everything is a little bit more all right.

* * *

Ianto doesn't panic when he wakes up in Jack's bed to find that the Captain is gone. He knows that Jack is back for good this time, and the still-warm spot beside him shows it. He's not even annoyed, because he's seen men who have been tortured before, and Jack shows some of the signs, for all that he still manages to hold himself together fairly well. It's natural that he would want to reacquaint himself with the Hub, see what's changed in his absence.

But Jack shouldn't have to do it alone.

Ianto spends a moment searching for his pants, gives up, and finds his trousers. He pulls them on with nothing underneath and zips them up carefully, then climbs out of Jack's bunker and checks the internal cameras.

Jack is down in the lower levels, standing outside a room that Ianto knows all too well. With a sigh, Ianto pulls himself from the computer chair, feeling his muscles twinge and ache in delightful ways, and follows the Captain's path.

He finds him still in the doorway, looking over the sea of shattered dinnerware that Ianto could never quite bring himself to clean up, and leans against the wall beside him.

"Checking for Cybermen, sir?" he asks dryly. "I assure you, once was enough. I've gotten my fix of death, destruction, and mortal peril."

"You work for Torchwood," Jack counters, and thankfully, there's a quirk of amusement to his mouth, even if he doesn't look away from the room's china-shard carpet. "Obviously, you haven't."

"I work for _you_," Ianto says softly, and that's all the distinction in the world. "I have since the aftermath of those bloody cannibals."

It's the closest to a declaration of love he'll come under current circumstances, the closest that Jack will accept right now. From the look in Jack's eyes as he glances over at Ianto, the Captain knows it.

Ianto looks away from those carefully assessing blue eyes and turns to face his sea of destruction. With a soft sigh, he admits, "I might not have handled your leaving as well as I could have. Though," he interrupts when Jack opens his mouth, "I understand why you left, and why finding your Doctor was so important. You don't have to explain it to me, Jack."

Jack smiles at him, brilliant and beautiful, and wraps an arm around his shoulder.

He doesn't say anything, but as they turn to leave, he scoops up a shard of white-and-silver china and tucks it into his pocket.

Ianto doesn't remark on it, but he slides his arm through Jack's and tangles their fingers together as they walk up.


End file.
